The Garden Party

by Grace Dane Mazur

  Little Eli approached the fish and looked at it. He shook his head.

  “Don’t you want some?” said Laurie.

  With a voice like a bell, hesitant and sudden, Eli said, “No. It was beautiful. You made it ruined. I don’t want some.”

  Eli left them and walked back to the bench. There he took off his underpants, still wet from the pond, and threw them into the forest. He got dressed, put on his shoes, tied the laces into knots, and walked away from the others. “You stupid sillyass,” he hissed at himself.

  “Hey, Eli,” Laurie called after him. She didn’t dare mention his talking. She wanted him to stay with them, and worried about his mood. “Don’t you want your knife back?”

  “You keep it,” he called back. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  He hurried off.

  “Eli talked,” Harriet said to Laurie.

  “I know.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell your parents?”

  “My dad doesn’t deserve to know,” Laurie said. “But my mom has to know. She worries so much.”

  Liam stood beside the fish, master of it. He flaked some of it with a stick and picked at it with his fingers. “Needs something,” he said. Harriet took some. “Salt?” she said. “Lemon?” She gave a small chunk of fish to Emily. Beside them, the pale girl, Leila, crouched on her haunches, watching but not eating.

  * * *

  —

  “YOU STUPID STUPID boy,” Eli kept repeating as he walked alone down the path. “What will you do now?” He was always careful to keep silent when people were around, except for occasional humming. But when he was alone, after checking that no one could overhear, he would utter all the words he had heard during the day—both the things they had tried to teach him and the ones they hoped he hadn’t heard. Alone, he would also sing to himself, using words in the correct way, but never if anyone was near, anyone older than he was. With babies and cats, if the coast was clear, he would utter small things.

  Laurie often tried with infinite sweetness and patience to teach Eli to speak. She considered it her job as his older sister. Sometimes she tried to teach him good words, like elephant and truck and excellent, but other times a look came over her and she would lower her voice to pronounce with special clarity dickhead and Prozac and asshole. Occasionally she would experiment and tell him the word for his small blue truck was really swimming pool, things like that, which he knew were wildly wrong, but he did not ask her why she was doing it. Of course, she was part of the reason he had decided not to talk in the first place. But only part of it. But now he, too, had ruined things. Tricked into speech by the burnt and mangled fish, he was lost. He felt sick, useless. “You stupid,” he wept. “You broke it. Now what will you do?”

  * * *

  —

  AT THE POND, Harriet looked up. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “In the bushes.”

  “Where?”

  “Over there. I think it’s watching us.”

  “Eli?”

  “No, it’s big. Much bigger. It breaks branches when it moves.”

  “Is it a bear?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think there are bears here.”

  “A deer?”

  “Deer would be scared of us.”

  “A man?”

  “Listen…he’s saying something.”

  “What?”

  “Shh.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Shut up, Harriet, it’s because you’re talking that we can’t hear it.”

  “Well, I’m talking because I don’t think there’s anything there.”

  But the nothing in the woods seemed to grow into a bigger nothing, a darkness, and they all became afraid at the same moment that it was a man there, or a something, about to jump out of the woods and come for them.

  Leaving their shoes and socks and clothes and leaving the candle and the small cooking fire on the stones and the charred flakes of the once gold and yellow fish—still in their sodden underpants, bodies streaked with mud, lips blue, hair spiky and wet, shrieking and weeping—they ran down the path out of the shadowy forest and back to the grown-ups at their dinner party in the garden, which still held the last rays of light.

  New wind currents eddied up from the ground as the children appeared, yelping like animals. Shivering and smeared with shadows of green and violet they called out.

  “Mom, where are you?”

  “Hey, Dad! There was something.”

  “We think there was something in the woods.”

  Then the organism that was the party inhaled and waved its claws and straightened and shook its appendages and stiffened around the long dining table and seemed to come apart, breaking up singly and severally into many private segments. The soft evening light glimmered on Philippa’s gold bracelets and Olivia’s silver hair ornament and Celia’s emerald necklace and everyone’s eyeglasses everywhere while the grown-ups rushed away from the table to gather and comfort their half-naked children.

  “We heard something,” panted Liam. “At the pond.”

  The other children agreed. They could not say exactly what it was that had frightened them.

  “Well, it was sort of a thrashing about,” Harriet said. “In the trees.” Her hair was all heaved and matted on one side.

  “Where’s Eli? Was he with you?”

  “Eli’s fine. He left before us.”

  “Were you swimming?” asked Philippa. “Who was watching you?”

  “Harriet and Laurie and the other girl.”

  “Harriet and Laurie are only ten. Anyway, let’s go in and get you all washed up. What other girl?”

  “Mom—”

  “What is it, Laurie?” said Olivia, running toward her. “Where’s Eli?”

  “Mom. Eli talked. Words. Lots of them. Perfectly.”

  Olivia put her hand to her mouth as though to keep her own words inside. Then she said, “Where?”

  “Up at the pond.”

  “No, I mean, where is he now?”

  “Here someplace, he came back early.”

  “I think we should declare recess,” Celia announced. “Until the little ones are calm and clean.” She beckoned to Borsuk and told him to hold off on serving the dessert. “Pindar, my love,” she said. “Would you blow out the candles? We’ll light them again when we come back.”

  Pindar gave a quiet nod.

  Nathan Morrill shuddered at the confusion of young children, naked and damp and streaked with earth mold, all of them chattering. The wine, which had fizzed his brain at dinner, now bogged it down. He shuffled his feet along the grass as he walked, feeling old and lonely and childless. He missed having young children. Perhaps he had never had them. It seemed to him now as though his daughters, Philippa and Charlotte, had been born middle-aged. His new friend Leah, who had charmed him, had run off, perhaps to find the missing three-year-old boy. Too stiff with age and Lyme disease to follow her, he had lifted one of his heavy paws in benediction. “I’ll wait for you,” he called to her. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Come and find me.”

  In the kitchen Borsuk was talking to Chhaya. His tuxedo, which no one had asked him to wear but no one had counseled against, since no one suspected he owned one, looked looser and less starched than it had at the beginning of the party, as though he had suddenly lost weight. It was an odd costume; it had certain turns of phrase—around the lapels and at the collar and cuffs—that spoke of a different century or continent. He stood facing Chhaya, who was wiping her hands on the dish towel hanging from her waist. Between them, on the kitchen table, sat an imposing confection covered with uncooked meringue. A handful of Fourth of July sparklers stood in a glass; they were to be inserted into the meringue once it came out of the oven. The fireworks had been Leah Cohen’s idea, which she had propo
sed instead of ignited brandy on top. “You don’t want to burn up good liquor,” she had explained. “But you don’t want to put cheap liquor on a grand dessert.”

  “She said to hold off,” Borsuk told Chhaya.

  “What hold off? I was just putting it into the oven.”

  “I’m glad I caught you,” Borsuk said. “It is a disaster out there.” He explained about the children running in from the forest. “That’s them all going upstairs now, to wash. Complete mess. It will be an hour before they clean them up and find their clothes and get back to the table.”

  “But what am I to do? If she waits me too long, the ice cream inside will melt, and the cake underneath will get all wet, and the meringue, I don’t know, it will blow down. All yesterday I made the cake and even I made the ice cream. Vanilla bean. Why do they break up my dinner party? It was going so well.”

  “It was going perfectly,” Nathan Morrill agreed. “Your salmon was heavenly.”

  Chhaya’s face contracted into a frightening mask. She ran out of the room.

  Borsuk looked at Nathan Morrill and waved his hands in dismay.

  “No,” said Nathan. “Don’t say that. I mean, don’t gesture like that. We don’t have time for gestures. Quick, find me a couple of bowls and a big spoon, a flat knife, and a spatula. What goes together can occasionally come happily apart. Put that bowl in the freezer. Watch.”

  Nat shuffled over to the sink and scrubbed as though preparing for surgery. The soap kept falling into the sink, as this was not a good time of day for his fingers. He flexed them under the hot water as though trying to melt them. As he rinsed and dried, he turned to Borsuk. “Look,” he said, lifting his big flat hands with their thumbs lying alongside the palms. “These are not working too well tonight. Could you wash your hands and I’ll talk you through it?”

  Borsuk took off his tuxedo jacket, rolled up his sleeves, then washed. He tucked a dish towel into his collar and another one into his black cummerbund, and stood in front of the table. Following instructions, he scraped the covering of meringue off the ice cream and into the large bowl.

  “Now,” Nathan said. “The ice cream goes into the bowl we chilled in the freezer.”

  Borsuk sliced the ice cream off the top of the yellow cake and slid it into the bowl. It was as though he had been disassembling uncooked Baked Alaskas for years.

  “Hurry. Meringue into the fridge, ice cream in the freezer, and all we need is a couple of small glasses of scotch whiskey.”

  Borsuk looked tentative about the drink.

  “If anyone asks,” Nathan said, “I’ll say I made you do it. I will explain to them what we so brilliantly saved, and why we needed a bit of fortification at this point.” He went to the cupboard and took down the bottle of scotch with both hands. Then he went to the baking drawer and took out the El Rey chocolate. “A bit of this goes very well with it. Oh, could you get the glasses? And pour?” He looked at his hands and shook them as though to get them working again. He held them to his ears, like a clock.

  Borsuk looked puzzled.

  “Joking,” Nat said. “Sort of.”

  Olivia burst in. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, looking around wildly. “Where is the cook? Has anybody seen little Eli? He’s three, and doesn’t talk. Or hardly. Did he come in here?”

  Borsuk shook his head. “Only before dinner,” he said. “Not since.”

  * * *

  —

  THERE WAS STILL a great scattering back and forth. Naomi and Sara ran up to the pond to get the clothing the children had left behind. They brought it all upstairs for the mothers to sort and distribute. The fathers had been sent downstairs, for there wasn’t room for every parent to wash every child. Pindar and Celia walked with Stephen and Philippa in the garden, apologizing for the sudden interruption of festivities.

  * * *

  —

  AS THOUGH BY prearrangement, Cameron and Naomi found each other at the far end of the driveway. “This can’t happen,” he said, kissing her.

  “No,” she said, letting herself fall against him. “I know.”

  “I mean, really it can’t,” he said.

  “Even once? Just once?” she said.

  “When?” he said.

  “Now,” she said, pulling away and taking his hand and leading him into the trees.

  For a sweet fierce while the leaf mold of the forest floor was warm and fragrant and forgiving. Then there were two more who needed cleaning up. Naomi led Cam to the washroom in the garage.

  * * *

  —

  SARA STOOD WITH Dennis by the statue. They were just far enough from her parents and the Barlows on the other side of the garden. They pretended they were talking about the statue, pointing at it from time to time.

  “What happens now?” Dennis said.

  “Well,” said Sara. “The children get washed and we all go back to the table….” But her voice was unsteady.

  “You know that wasn’t what I meant.”

  “I know. But I can’t give you an answer just yet.”

  “I was going to ask you not to answer too quickly.”

  Naomi, who was gliding into the garden, came over to join them.

  “Stand still,” Sara told her, “while I groom you like a monkey. You have pieces of the forest in your hair.” She plucked pine needles and bits of leaves. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Naomi, smiling. She added, “A sweet and momentary fever.”

  Sara didn’t know if Naomi was referring to her mood or her actions. She wanted to warn her about something, but who was she to talk? Perhaps for Naomi and Cam whatever had happened between them was encapsulated in the ritual time of this summer evening, perhaps for them the pain of loss would never come.

  Naomi kissed her sister and thanked her, then ran off toward the house. Sara turned to Dennis. “How do I know”—she paused—“how do I know if the desire I feel right now is just the heat of the moment, or if it is something more terrible?”

  “Terrible?”

  “Terrifying, I mean.”

  “Do you think you are alone in this? Of course it is terrifying. The white heat of the soul. But about Africa, isn’t it better to have something for a short time than not to have it at all?”

  Sara gazed at him. The statue seemed to be smiling down at her.

  * * *

  —

  JUST OUTSIDE THE library window a young bat hangs from the muscat grapes, then darts to the honeysuckle growing on the wooden trellis. Drunk with sweetness it loops through the air, back and forth.

  Inside, in the dusk of the book-lined room, little Eli sleeps in a reading chair, folded up under a blanket.

  The dinner party broke up just before dessert. The children, alarmed by the lateness of the hour or by some presence in the woods, had run screaming from the pond. The grown-ups fled from the table in the garden as though routed, and went to wash and calm their offspring. Leah Cohen chose that time to make her escape. She needed to take a stroll. If she hadn’t gone off then, if she had been content to stay in the garden with Pindar and Celia and the older Barlows, then Adam and Eliza’s church wedding would have taken place the next day instead of being postponed until September. Pindar and Celia would later wonder if Leah had realized this when she took off, but they could not believe that her actions had been intentional. Besides, she had always said that all long meals should have intermissions, in order to walk off what she called the stiffness of being.

  Leah knew that the three-year-old Barlow boy was safely asleep in the leather reading chair in the library, wrapped in a paisley afghan, but she used the pretext of going to look for him as an excuse to walk up to the pond.

  “Shall we come with you?” Sara offered. “Don’t you want some company? It’s about to get dark.” Later she would regret not having in
sisted. She could have at least followed her grandmother from a distance. Even if she was still talking with Dennis. They could both have gone.

  “No, no,” said Leah. “You two should stay here and check the back of the garden.” Sara and her young man were in some sort of turmoil. “Take some time, you two, to figure things out.” Then, turning to Sara, “You know, my dear, it’s absolutely no business of mine, but I really think you should do it, whatever it is that you are hesitating about. You should go. Otherwise you will always wonder about how it would have been. You will be left full of the regrets of failure to leap.”

  “Go? You mean to Africa?”

  “Africa.” Leah swept her arm to indicate the continent and all the distant world. “Africa. Greece. Everywhere. Look deeply, write about everything you see, and then, particularly, about what you fail to see. And remember to always shake out your boots in the morning.”

  “I will try,” Sara said. She felt lighter, as though the decision had been made. She saw from the way Dennis shifted his head, ever so slightly, that he understood that she had decided to come to Africa with him.

  “One more thing,” Leah added, unable now to stop herself. “Be kind to each other. That is my remaining advice. Kindness is the only way you can see inside. Ti esti philos? Allos ego. What is a friend? Another self. That’s the first thing you learn in Greek, but it could also be the last. And in the middle you learn gnothi seauton. Know thyself. Without knowing your own self, you can’t know what ‘another’ self is. Your young man will teach you the Greek, but that is the least of it. Especially for you two. Give it time. Promise me that. Tonight isn’t really your story—that will come after all this.” Leah smiled at Sara and held out her arms for an embrace, for she was afraid she had said too much. She felt like a shepherd. One had to keep an eye on people. Leah kissed Sara, and then turned to Dennis and kissed him as well.

  Leah was glad she knew where the little boy was, and knew that the others would find him before long. She felt incorrect running from the party, but her son, Pindar, would always do the same thing: He would escape his guests several times of an evening. “I felt I had to breathe,” he would say later. Her daughter-in-law, Celia, tended to stay more in the thick of things, coping with what Pindar had left behind. Celia was good at that. Tonight, though, Leah was the one who needed some air. She pulled in a deep breath. It was almost dizzying how many people there were around the dinner table. A table full of desires. All those appetites. They seemed to be forming cobwebs that got in the way of her breathing.